Pitts: The sad state of zealots with microphones

You are a moocher, a zombie, soulless, mouth-breathing, ignorant, greedy, self-indulgent, envious, shallow and lazy.

The foregoing is a summation of “analysis” from conservative pundits and media figures — Cal Thomas, Ted Nugent, Bill O’Reilly and etcetera — seeking to explain Mitt Romney’s emphatic defeat. They seem to have settled on a strategy of blaming the voters for not being smart enough or good enough to vote as they should have. Because America wasn’t smart enough or good enough, say these conservatives, it shredded the constitution, bear hugged chaos, French kissed socialism, and died.

In other words, the apocalypse is coming.

Granted, such thinking does not represent the totality of conservative response to the election. The reliably sensible columnist Kathleen Parker offered a, well . . . reliably sensible take on what’s wrong with the Republican Party. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal spoke thoughtfully to Politico about how conservatism must change to meet the challenges of the future.

Unfortunately, for every Parker or Jindal, there is a Donald Trump urging revolution or a petition drive advocating secession from the Union. And just when you think you’ve heard it all, just when you think you could not possibly be more astonished at how panic-stricken and estranged from reality much of the political right now is, there comes word of Henry Hamilton’s suicide.

He was the 64-year-old owner of a tanning salon in Key West, Fla. As recently reported in The Miami Herald, he was found dead two days after the election with empty prescription bottles next to him, one for a drug to treat anxiety, another for a drug to treat schizophrenia. Hamilton, according to his partner, Michael Cossey, was stressed about his business and had said that if President Obama were re-elected, “I’m not going to be around.” Police found his will, upon which was scrawled “F--- Obama.”

Sometimes, they act — the Hannitys, the O’Reillys, the Trumps, the Limbaughs, the whole conservative political infotainment complex — as if this were all a game, as if their nonstop litany of half truths, untruths and fear mongering, their echo chamber of studied outrage, practiced panic, intellectual incoherence and unadulterated equine feculence, had no human consequences. Sometimes, they behave as if it were morally permissible — indeed, morally required — to say whatever asinine, indefensible, coarse or outrageous thing comes to mind in the name of defeating or diminishing the dreaded left. And never mind that vulnerable people might hear this and shape their beliefs accordingly.

Did the conservative political infotainment complex kill Henry Hamilton? No.

But were they the water in which he swam, a Greek chorus echoing and magnifying the outsized panic that troubled his unwell mind? It seems quite likely.

One hopes, without any real expectation, that Hamilton’s death will give pause to the flame throwers on the right. One hopes, without any real expectation, that somebody will feel a twinge of conscience. Or shame.

But that will not happen.

Because, what you see here is not the behavior of calculating showmen who don’t believe half the garbage they say. If it were, we might have hope.

But these, I have come to believe, are not showmen. They are zealots. They do believe half the garbage they say, and they have microphones to say it with. That is infinitely more frightening.

So one can only hope, with slightly more expectation, the GOP will finally disenthrall itself from this ongoing affront to decency and intelligence and thereby render it moot.

Until it does, we can only absorb the impact of these regularly scheduled meltdowns. And pity the likes of Henry Hamilton.

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Mr. Pitts is correct except that he left one (or some) person out -- whoever is paying the big bucks to the talking heads to say what they are saying is also guilty. It seems that a few very wealthy people pay millions of dollars to talking heads -- the more outrageous the rants, the more money they get.

The sad thing is, many listeners say, "Well, if it's not true, they'll sue." No, John Kerry did not sue when he was being swiftboated. What good would it have done? The election would have been over before his lawsuit came to trial; also, the time and money spent on such a venture would have been wasted since getting a lawsuit heard takes so long. (I recommend the streaming Netflix documentary "Brothers in Arms.")

Canada licensing rules make sense. They did not sell Rupert Murdoch air frequencies, and they have a law that if deliberate lies are told during a campaign, the guilty person telling the lies is fined heavily -- something like a million dollars. I believe in freedom of speech, but I don't believe in "freedom of lies."

With all the untrue and semi true propaganda that has spewed from the normal cast of talking heads over the last 5 years, Obama has been elected twice. The small group with large check books will either remove themselfs or alter their Natzi like viewpoints.

This process appears to already have started as Hannity claimed this week that his views on immigration has now "evolved".

Those on the left, like my friend BTX, should root for the right to never change. As long as the voice of the right is Sean, Rush and Ted the Reps will not live in the White House again.

The funny thing about this hilarious article is that Pitts is the exact mirror image on the left of the right wing hacks he deplores. He deals in fear mongering, stereotypes, dogma, and sloppy thinking on a regular basis. He is every bit as much a party hack as those he criticizes. His only good point is that he looks good compared to phony country boy HIghtower, but then almost anyone would.